Pesticides 101
What is a pesticide?
According to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), a pesticide is “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest.” This includes weed killers (herbicides), bug killers (insecticides), rodent killers, and antimicrobials (e.g., disinfectants, algicides, and fungicides).
Understanding the Pesticide Registration Process
The EPA and state agencies regulate the licensing, sale, and use of pesticides. A common misconception is that a pesticide’s registration by the EPA and availability to the public means that it has been extensively tested and deemed safe. Ongoing funding limitations and politics have significantly restricted research on these chemicals’ health and environmental impacts. In fact, the vast majority of the research presented to the EPA as part of a product’s registration approval process is conducted “in house” by the company manufacturing the product. There is currently no independent oversight process. The testing data on which the EPA relies to register a chemical is largely conducted by the pesticide manufacturer themselves. The notion that pesticide safety labeling is based upon objective, government sponsored research is simply not true. Over the years, many pesticides have been approved for use, but later banned due to mounting independent research evidence of the harm they’ve caused.
Pesticide Registration No Guarantee of Safety
The following link provides an excellent summary of the EPA’s chemical registration process:
To learn more about the limitations of pesticide regulation, go to:
Has a professional lawn service told you their products are safe? Such claims may be false and illegal. Learn what the U.S. General Accounting Office discovered when they reviewed this issue in 1990.
How do pesticides get into our bodies?
Pesticide exposure occurs in several ways. Lawn and garden pesticides can: 1) drift through the air in a gaseous form and be inhaled; 2) be absorbed into the bloodstream through skin contact; or 3) ingested through hand-to-mouth activity. When tracked into our homes, these chemicals can accumulate in carpets and rugs where they cannot easily degrade due to lack of exposure to sunlight and soil microbes. These residues can persist indoors for months and can be re-released into the air and settle in household dust, thereby increasing the chances of exposure, especially to children and pets. Pesticides also enter our drinking water supply as polluted runoff.
Why are some people affected by pesticides and others are not?
Recent research (see Research Studies) has shown that repeated pesticide exposure acts as a trigger for disease, especially in those who are already genetically predisposed to develop certain illnesses. In fact, some individuals have lower levels of cytochrome P-450 liver detoxification enzymes which would predispose them to accelerated damage from exposure to synthetic chemicals (Harry Gelboin, National Cancer Institute). It may take many years of exposure for one person to be affected, while another person may only need minimal exposed to suffer negative health consequences.
